Poured from a 22 oz. bottle (Bottled On July 2008) into a snifter glass.

A vigorous pour yields a 1-finger mocha-colored head that slowly recedes to a thin, clumpy dusting and thick foam ring. The body is a nearly perfect black with no traces of color when held to light. Light lacing is noticed throughout consumption.

Medium bodied with great carbonation, this beer has a nearly creamy mouthfeel. The carbonation allows the beer to coat your mouth fully without being too sticky.

While the appearance and nose are great, the flavor and mouthfeel are not as spectacular. The flavor is too sweet in my opinion which detracts from the coffee and chocolate flavors that should be center stage. The mouthfeel, which allows for great drinkability, is too carbonated in my opinion, as it does not allow the darker flavors to develop properly on your tongue.

The pour yields a thick brownish-black head that sticks around. The nose is strong with chocolate, coffee, and roasty goodness. The flavors are sweet roasted malts, dark chocolate, and raisins. The finish is a tad bitter, but not unpleasantly so. Velvety smooth on the tongue. The moderate boozyness keeps me from chugging it. Nummy.

The Stone Chocolate Oatmeal Stout poured a very dark and rich black/brown with thin caramel colored head and very little retension

The nose is very nice with chocolate, coffee, cherries and dark fruits.

The taste is nice but less then anticipated with such a nice nose. It is roasted malt, chocolate, and a bitter coffe-like finish.

The mouthfeel again was a little thinner then anticipated but still very nice. More carbonated then I prefer in an Imperial Stout.

Although this isn't one of my favorite Imperial Stouts it certainly is a very nice example of one, and one I will surely partake in again when I get the chance. If you see one, get one, then drink one. You won't regret it. Enjoy!!!

22oz bottle into snifter. Bottled July 2008. Huge thanks to jbck109 for this one!

A: Pour pitch black with about a finger of dark brown head that stuck around for a while before disappearing into pretty much nothing. Not much in the way of lace.
S: Rich notes of roasted coffee and, just like the name, bitter dark chocolate. Not picking up much else, or really anything in the way of complexity, but what scents are there are good.
T: The coffee nose doesn’t really translate into the taste except maybe in the finish. Instead, the flavors in this beer really live up to its name. The flavor starts off creamy and “oatmealy” with a sort of creamy chocolate milkshake flavor, then finishes bitter with rich notes of dark chocolate and touch of caramel sweetness. The aftertaste has a note or two of warm alcohol but overall the flavors are very well balanced.
M: Full bodied with a thick mouthfeel that is oh so very smooth. The carbonation is a touch too tingly but I’m splitting hairs at this point.
O: I was really impressed by this one, not only in flavor, but how its held up since 08. Not that this surprised me; most everything by Stone is excellent. Thanks again jbck109 for your generosity!

A menacingly thick and black pour with a thin brown, persistent head. Thick and oily in the glass and leaves plenty of lacing. Looks mean and menacing but beautiful.

Roasted malts, caramel malts, and plenty of dark chocolate in the nose. Unlike most stouts that smell of melted, bittersweet chocolate, this chocolate seems roasted or burnt. It's a bit sharp and not easily accessible nor obviously pleasant, but it contributes to this beer's menacing profile. It's certainly unique.

This beer tastes better than it smells. The dark chocolate works better on the palette than it does in the nose, as it loses some of that burnt and astringent profile. No alcohol presence at all, little hop presence, but mainly just a thick, menacing, chocolatey, big stout...which is never a bad thing!

Creamy, thick, chewy in the mouth, which is appropriate and expected for this style, but not quite as velvety and full as the standard Stone RIS.

I think this beer has aged particularly well. There's no obvious presence of alcohol, the chocolate may have mellowed a bit; an enjoyable sipper I'm glad I got the opportunity to experience at the brewery/bistro.

S) The one glaring flaw with this beer for me was the smell. I could smell what I can only describe as "Vodka" it was distinct, despite the age on the bottle. I have a few more of these I'll give more time on to try to rectify this, but none of that mattered once I got to the taste.

T) Wonderful chocolate and caramel notes, and not sweet at all... just perfect harmony of chocolate and beer.

M) Velvety and smooth, wonderful light carbonation.

O) This is a fantastic beer! Again, the smell was "off" but all was forgotten when tasting. This is yet another example of a "flavored" stout that doesn't go overboard with sweetness, making it a very enjoyable beer without making you feel like you should have a straw.

Last bottle from rattle n hum. Poured room temp into a small chalice looking glass. Looks as a stout should dark deep brown with a 1 finger tan head for a solid 30 seconds while the head dissipates to nothing. Smell is comprised of dark chocolate, plum, brown sugar and alcohol. Taste is much closer to the description oatmeal stout with a definite presence of unsweetened chocolate. Mouthfeel has some definite pluses silky, mild carbonation and a slight alcohol heat. Overall I would buy this again given the oppurtunity.

T/M: Chocolate and roasted/burned coffee. Alcohol flavor comes in right after. Body is creamy and the beer is very drinkable as a dessert. There is something missing from this though. Beer flavor is a bit one-dimensional.

Found this beer in the back of my kegerator a while back and decided to try it out since my buddy, MrTopher, just traded me a few that he found sitting in the back of his local bottle shop. Not sure if the prolonged cold affected this one, but it just seemed to be missing a bit of flavor I remembered it having when fresh.

Almost made a grave mistake with this bottle. After transporting it entirely across the country for the sole purpose of sharing with my lady, accidentally took this to the disc golfing, having pulled it from my box of homemade cider. Blindly, and in a rage at my double bogey on hole 5, I pulled the bottle from my bag and popped it, neglecting to notice that, for once, a cap and bottle matched breweries. No there was no time. The brown foam showed, I knew my error. Quickly, I sipped once and sealed the bottle back up with the creasing of my knife.
Confident in my seal, I continued upon the course and upon my poor performance. Some days are not for kings.
Upon the return to Brooklyn, the bottle was opened to great fanfare and celebration. Still sporting healthy carbonation due to my advanced reflexes (beyond catlike), this sexy deep purple brown black with its sex head was right on for an imperial stout. Huge, surprisingly huge, alcohol nose blasting off with the bitter chocolate. Really not much else, very little roast or big malt and fuck the oatmeal, where is that?
It's tasty, but the alcohol is amazingly still violent in this beer after a couple years. Really amazing. The chocolate in it is good, but the violence of the alcohol is reminiscent of Huck Finn's father.
Very surprised, since I remembered liking it quite a bit the first time I had it. Still liked it, just would've thought it'd be in a much more contemplative stage of life by now. Or am I just getting older?

A: Beer pours a very dark used motor oil like black that does not yield much head. A slight off white sheen of head quickly dissolves in my snifter glass. Limited lacing but very sticky

S: Very boozy, malty, chocolate aroma to this beer. A complex theme of flavors that seems to center around a dark malt chocolate flavor.

T: Nice dark chocolate, liquorice, roasted malt taste with a hint of bitter hops. There is a distinct bitter chocolate malt finish to this beer which also revels a very strong alcohol presence.

M: Medium body with a very light carbonation to this beer. There is a medium thickness to this beer but the taste is quite smooth.

D: - Very drinkable beer given the thickness and high ABV content. This is a delicious beer that has aged quite well over the last several years. The interplay between dark chocolate, hops and malt backbone is most excellent!

Poured a deep brown/black with a nice two-finger tan head that lingers for a while. This doesn't seem as black as other beers, but maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me. Fine bubbling leaves excellent sheets of lace until swirling removes them.

Smell is a nice blend of roasted grains and deep roasted coffee to go with a good earthy, oatmeal character. Chocolate is baking chocolate quality in terms of bitterness, but lacks punch as the coffee and oatmeal cover it up.

Taste is a good blend of charred malt and dark coffee with a decent amount of booze at the back. I'm surprised that that's present after a couple years on this, but it isn't too much of a factor anyhow. Chocolate is a good bitter chocolate, but combined with the malts a strange sweetness comes about that I don't like too much. There isn't nearly enough oatmeal goodness in here either, something I was looking forward to. Solid, but disappointing.

Mouthfeel is pretty thick and and creamy, with plenty of stickiness all around. I want more smoothness though. Drinkability is decent, but not really even above average due to the weird booze and coffee combo. Oatmeal helps out a bit, but it needs to be amplified. I was looking forward to this brew, and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

S: Pretty faint aroma; I can definitely tell this is an oatmeal stout though- a hint of that tangy oatmeal flavor is present. Some light chocolate malts as well. Not a bad smell, but its weakness brings the rating down a bit.

T: Oatmeal flavor is pretty prominent once again, especially to start things off, before giving way to a very bitter, dark chocolate flavor. I hate to describe this beer primarily with characteristics included in its name, but the name is extremely appropriate. There's a big hoppy element to the bitterness; I'm picking up a good number of piny/resinous flavors on the finish.

M: Medium-thick body with light carbonation; this is smooth, thick, and creamy, just like an imperial stout ought to be to maximize its flavor. Very enjoyable.

O: This beer is better than the sum of its parts; I found my glass running low pretty quickly. I'm happy that I have another bottle of this, especially since it was a limited release.

Bomber marked July 2008 poured into a stone pint glass. It's overdue that I finally take the time to dust a bottle of this off and give it a review.

As this brew sits in my pint glass, it appears a pitch black color with hardly any light showing through even the edges. When held to the light, it displays some decent clarity around the outer most edges which gives way to some lighter brown hues and redness. The cap appears a dark tan to brown color, a finger strong that quickly recedes to a thin film across the top of the brew. A light swirl hardly revives the cap's strength, it just pushes the bubble formation closer to the edges of the glassware. Faint spotty lacework clings to the glass.

The aroma of this brew is all over the place. For a label that reads bitter chocolate stout, the first things I pick up on are that of dark fruits, raisin, plum, figs that give way to licorice, chocolate, fresh grains and a slight indication of oxidation. There is a light burnt to charcoal aroma that leads into a scent that is minorly reminiscent of soy sauce. The soy in this case is not dominating or overpowering, it provides a pleasant depth to the aroma of this brew without going over the top and being distracting. The backend of this brew's scent finishes with the chocolate notes that are edging towards smelling burnt.

The taste of this brew is dark and roasty, it leaves a taste of heavily kilned grains inside the mouth that last with every sip which taste like semi-sweet chocolate. Fruity flavors of raisins and prunes accent the fruity aspect of the bold alcohol that is still evident in this brew. There is a sweet grainy flavor that meshes well with the fruity alcohol flavors of this brew before turning burnt on the tongue with a light musty character. More sips of this brew reveal a light amount of oxidation in the form of soy.

This is a medium to full bodied brew that seemingly coats the inside of the mouth with a silky smoothness. The carbonation is moderate which is peculiar because it appears visually as being inadequate but as the brew rests inside the mouth it is prickly and lively. At 3 years old I would say this brew is holding up pretty well. The alcohol is still readily evident with both flavor and warming factor down the throat. However, the soy notes elude to possible packaging fatigue at this point. I would love to be able to sit here and taste this brew fresh verse what it is now but that obviously isnt possible with a one-time brew. If you haven't had this yet, get out there and get it before it's too late.

Taste: I am not sure where this bottle was stored for nearly two years, but I guess it was in a suitable place because this tastes even better than it did back in '08 - bitter, burnt/roasted malts - chocolate, both "real" chocolate (cocoa) and chocolate malts - the flavors are great and they truly linger for a while - some heat, but it is well-hidden

Mouthfeel: Super smooth and oily, nice and full probably thanks to the oatmeal

Overall: Incredibly drinkable - just needs to be brewed again!

I loved this beer when it came out in 2008. At the time, being a certified beer noob, I didn't comprehend that it was only going to be around for a limited time. Since then I have acquired some other bottles, and I have noticed that this beer only seems to get better over time. It's not as complex as Stone IRS, but it is about on-par with its excellence. I hope this gets brewed again sometime.

Received this bottle today in the Black Booty BIF from drgonzo, Thanks Paul!

Poured into a snifter.

Pours an inky black with a thin mocha colored head that doesn't last. Barely a wisp of foam left. Some lacing and legs.

Aromas of dark cocoa, licorise, dark roasted coffee and dark roasted grains. No real hop aroma, but wouldn't expect it after almost 3 years.

First sip is vinous, with dark cocoa, roasty bitterness, and anise. No hop flavor either. Some sherry/oxidation flavors, that meld rather nicely with the chocolate. Finish is long with bittersweet chocolate, sherry, and roasty bitterness lingering long after each sip.

Mouthfeel is full and silky. Roasted graininess coats the mouth.

Highly drinkable. Wish I had tried this when it first came out to compare the aged version. But this has aged rather nicely. Wish I could get my hands on some more.

Good amount of bitter chocolate and roast in the nose with a nice coffee character overall.

Really nice oily oatmeal feel. Silky smooth with a great roasted bitter character. Bitter chocolate blends well with a good amount of bitterness from hops. The roasted character shines through everything though and gives this beer a dryness without taking anything away from the overall character of the beer.

Alcohol is hidden and subdued in general. Bitter cocoa with plenty of roasted character. This turns out to be a good blend of roasted character and oatmeal along with hops to give an overall pleasant double stout.

Pulled the cap off this vintage bottle and only had a tiny amount of gas and hiss that leaked out of the bomber. I poured this into my DFH bubbled pint glass straight on trying to entice a nice head. I was left with a one finger thick dark mocha almost chocolate colored head that faded away to almost nothing. This baby is as black as used motor oil with no light passing through and no yeast chunks floating around. On the swirl the viscosity appears to be pretty thick.

S - A molasses aroma dominants all other smells. There are subtle cocoa notes that arrive late during inhalation.

T - Very bold, almost invasive, alcohol during the initial phase of tasting. The middle of the taste has a funky, indistinguishable taste for my palate. The finish has a subtle, but nice, oatmeal favor.

M - Creamy and light for this style.

D - Great for an extremely, BITTERLY cold New England winter day. Drinkability only suffers because of the intense alcohol notes.

A - The pour is brown bordering on black and appears pretty viscous. Similar to 5,000 mile old motor oil. About 3/8" of solid brown head.

S - Lots of bitter chocolate/cocoa. The thing that I found interesting was a green olive aroma. There's also some burnt malts and some smokiness that can be picked up.

T - Taste is sweet up front with chocolate. It also finishes chocolaty, but quite on the bitter side. The green olive scent reappears on the tongue as well. Burnt nuttiness in the middle.

M - Viscous and velvety smooth. Carbonation may be the very slightest bit too prickly.

D - This thing goes down quite easy and the alcohol is nearly non-existent. I'm sure two and a half years have had something to do with that. At this point it seems well balanced and very smooth. I found this better as it warmed.

I really enjoyed the bitterness as done via the chocolate. There's a lengthy explanation on the bottle, but suffice to say, it works well.

Poured from a bomber into a snifter. Cellared since near the release date (first I could get my hands on anyway) about 2 ½ years I would think (I forget when the 'anniversaries' come out).

Infinitely black, like the night sky absent moon and stars. Mocha-colored, full-of-flavor-looking head. Mellow/subtle but still great lacing.

Pretty surprised at the alcohol evident in the smell considering it's only 9.2% and the amount of aging on it. Can't find the word I'm looking for exactly to describe the unique part of the nose that's coming from the oatmeal. Rest of the nose is more typical/what you'd expect.

Delicious. I know the name begins with the words bitter chocolate, but the taste begins with unmistakable bitter coffee notes. I find this interesting and unique. Usually we're use to stouts having these notes in the middle or end, so pretty cool. Of course, chocolaty throughout. And not as bitter as the title might have you believe.

Full-bodied. Just like a world-class oatmeal stout should be.

Bitter in the best way! If you're a stout and porter lover, I really hope you were able to get your hands on this brew. Straight up, can't say I've ever had a better oatmeal stout. I knew I loved it from the moment I tasted it in 2008 and feel proud of myself for the patience it took to cellar one for this long. Worth every month it took. Sad the journey is over. Happy I live in Southern California and there's always the hope of Stone holding a special event where they might break out some archived bottles or aged kegs.

Dug this one out of the back of the cellar. 22oz. bomber poured into a Darkness snifter.

A: Pours a dense, motor oil slick black liquid that's so heavy it forms near no head. Just a few wisps of dark mocha atop the brew. Lacing is stringy and sparse but with excellent stick.

S: Even after 2 years, nose is still quite boozy. Rubbing alcohol, sweet soy sauce, prunes, chocolate, and roasted malt. Nicely aromatic and the flavors present are almost spot on.

T: Opens sweet soy sauce, liquorice, chocolate, and prune juice. Roasted malt bitterness provides a nice background towards the middle. Ethanol starts to creep in just a bit at the back end which ruins the experience a touch. This is quickly covered though by bitter chocolate and chocolate malt. Soy sauce prevails in the end with a bit of prune juice sweetness. Finish is slightly spicy with a lingering filmy liquorice and chocolate aftertaste.

M: Medium to full bodied and very lightl carbonated. Thick and viscous in the mouth. Oily, slick, and coats the palate as it goes down. Doesn't really get any smoother than this. Finish is slightly accented and aftertaste is subtle but lingers.

D: Stone 12th anniversary goes a long way towards showing that rare =/= good. This is a world class beer by almost all standard. Delicious through and through with a mouthfeel that crushes the competition. This one's still pretty available and I'd suspect it's still yet to peak.